


In Foxholes

by Kastaka



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solaria's only ambition is to live, for herself; and she's not going to let a girl that calls her Foxface stand in her way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Foxholes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BatchSan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatchSan/gifts).



> With thanks for excellent beta'ing services from Morbane!

Solaria stands in her room, arms folded on the windowsill, gazing mutinously out across the cluster of identical two-bedroomed suburban houses.

She's pretty sure she's not bleeding any more. It was just one of those exciting scalp wounds that look a lot worse than they are. Once she's washed the blood out of her hair, it'll be the bruises from that overenthusiastic Peacekeeper that bother her a lot more.

What makes it worse is the way she totally deserves everything that she got.

Kids that get into the pylon runs kill people. She knows that. Usually themselves, but fairly often whatever poor sod ends up going in and trying to rescue them. 

Once upon a time, that could have been her mom.

And she knows that, right? She knows that Pyla is a station technician now, but she was second-line on the pylons for a stint. The colour had drained right out of her face when the Peacekeepers had dragged Solaria in, and it wasn't like there was much there to start with.

So she's lucky to have just been sent to her room with no supper and a stern instruction to think about what she's done, and grounded for the next month.

For a moment, she considers not being really mean to her mother tomorrow.

To make it even better, you see, tomorrow's the Test. Everyone in Five gets to take it, shortly before they turn twelve. If you pass, it's another five years of school, maybe more; you're on track for one of the coveted positions where you use your brain, and get to live in a house like this one in the leafy suburbs with your own room.

If you fail, that door closes - but other doors open - depending on the second part, the physical aptitude test, which determines what kind of grunt labour you can start working on. It's probably still worker's dorms all the way, or maybe camping out beneath the distribution pylons...

...but it's fresh air, and potentially travel, and not being stuck in a classroom for the forseeable future while your parents still get to treat you like a kid. 

And when Pyla told her she should have been revising, it was so hard not to say, "but I was!". There's no gym, no climbing frame, better than a bit of hiking and infiltration.

After all, it's not like Solaria is planning to be any kind of coal shoveller or chute monkey. She reckons she's clever enough to just scrape a fail - to pay attention to her classmates' scores and just not make the cut - and then she's going to ace that rope climb - and she's going to be a climber, a panel shiner, a first responder.

She will live high above the world, long-limbed and beautiful in the sunlight, and everyone will adore her.

And eventually her parents will admit they were wrong to try to cage her.

She knows that she could be second-line on the pylons, just like her mother, eventually. That she could be the troubleshooter that fixes the really interesting problems. That she could have the respect as well as the freedom, the vision without the drudgery, if she could only wait a few more years.

But she's eleven years old, and the next five years seem like forever to be chained within these four walls.

No - she will follow her dreams now, and let the future take care of itself.

\----

The worst part of the Reaping is having to go home.

"Our prodigal daughter!" booms her father. They've been watching her walk down the road towards them for the entire length of the street, standing on the front step expectantly; goodness knows how long they've been anxiously waiting there for her.

As far as she can tell, they might just stand there all year, waiting for her to come home.

He clasps her shoulders as her mother hovers uncertainly. "It's good to see you," he intones, "and so healthy you look, too! It's a pity you don't take the sun better - you've been growing like a weed, you should have a tan to match!"

Her mother takes her backpack - all the possessions she has in the world - as soon as her father releases her. "What have they been feeding you?" she fusses. "You look thin as a rake! Don't worry, we've got a decent brunch waiting in the kitchen. Have you been getting our letters? I know you told us we couldn't send things with them any more..."

"I said you shouldn't send things with them because Henry just confiscates them all, and he's too fat to fit through a junction box as it is," she replies, shucking her coat and sticking it over the bannister, wiping her feet and taking her shoes off.

Nothing ever changes here. It's been three years since she left home for the first time, and nothing has changed. Her old clothes are still in her drawers; she's thoroughly grown out of all of them. Her stuffed toys look down at her reproachfully from the chest of drawers, judging her for abandoning them.

She takes the opportunity to eat well. It's the one saving grace of the place: the food is always good.

Her parents want to know everything, they say, but she knows that they don't really want to know about the three hundred foot drop she hung over by her hands for fifteen minutes when the supports dug into rotten wood gave way, or the gentle parabola that Sandy followed through the empty air as she was thrown away from the malfunctioning transformer.

It's not like they don't know. It's like the reason for her being home. Everyone knows, but no-one talks about it.

Having a real bath is also quite good, she supposes, as she luxuriates in the tub; soaking up the time, so that she doesn't have to spend so much of it with them. It's not that they're bad people. It's not even that they're bad parents. It just feels weird, like a shirt whose sleeves are suddenly too tight.

And the feeling doesn't get any better when she gets out there in the sunlight, corralled into the pen with the other fifteen-year-olds.

"Hey, Soli!" calls one of them. "You seeing anyone cool, out on the road?"

"Did you get somewhere with TV this time?" asks another. "We've got the whole season of Sunrise Towers if you wanna come over after this, 'case you missed it - we can do the good bits overnight."

Most of the people she knew before the Reapings became a part of her life have stayed in school, become almost unrecognisable to her; caricatures of an adolescence that she rejected. She catches herself looking around for Sandy. Last year they stood together, held hands and giggled about the immaturity of the kids Solaria grew up with.

This year, she can stand with the other apprentices, or she can stand with the kids from her neighbourhood, but neither of them mean anything to her. Neither of them really understand her.

Sandy didn't, really, either. But they'd worked together, that was something. She's worked with other people, but apprentices don't stay with people of their own age as much as the school folk, or have such large classes, so she hasn't worked with any of these people.

The banter from the Capitol types on stage goes by fast enough, while she leans casually on one of the posts holding up the ropes and daydreams about being up near the roof of the world.

Then she hears the words, cutting through the air towards her:

"Solaria Pylasdottir!"

The gossip and the chatter fall silent around her. People whose faces she barely recognises attempt to lay hands on her - to comfort her, to touch someone who is going to be famous, to reassure themselves that Solaria is real and therefore their stay of execution is real as well.

She dodges around their hands and their reassurances, ducking and weaving out to the central corridor, where the Peacekeepers are waiting to escort her to the stage.

It doesn't seem to bother her. She's not sure whether it's shock, or courage... or just the determined feeling of reaching for the next handhold, regardless of the swaying and the crackling.

She smiles and waves. After all, whom would she put in her place? She looks out across the crowd; no-one, she would put no-one in her place. 

Except... she can't see them, but she imagines Pyla, stumbling back with terror, being caught by her husband's weaker but more steady arms.

So maybe an orphan, if there were one, for Pyla's sake. 

The worst part of the Reaping, it turns out? 

Is never being able to go home again.

\----

They keep her in one of the many tiny rooms in City Hall.

There's a Peacekeeper on the door. It seems all rather unnecessary. If she wanted to escape, she'd pop the window out of its frame with a couple of sharp blows from the nice wooden chair, and be off down the wall. 

She expects she'd have to push it outwards, which would make a little noise outside, as she wouldn't have the time inside after the first loud crack of chair-leg against corner to put it down carefully.

The daydreaming about how she would leave the area comfortably passes the time, which would otherwise drive her mad. The trouble, of course, isn’t with getting away; the trouble is with living, somehow, once you've done it.

"Your parents," announces the Peacekeeper gruffly, before ushering them in.

Pyla has only recently stopped crying, and looks like she might start again. It's her father's turn to hover uncertainly, standing as if he might have to catch his fainting wife.

"Soli," she says, and Solaria bites back her usual correction; this is not the time. "Oh, Soli, what can I say?"

Solaria is sitting at the table. She looks awkwardly at her hands. It seems monstrously unfair that she's the calm and responsible one who has to comfort them.

"You always told me," she says, in a measured tone, "that if you couldn't say anything nice, not to say anything at all."

Pyla screws up her face, and sniffs. Solaria wants to think that it's for display, like most of what her mother does; she does not want to think that one of her parents is genuinely out of control.

"Is that all you think of us?" she sniffles. "Truly?"

"No," protests Solaria, lifting up her gaze and looking her mother in the eyes. She doesn't want to leave them like this; she knows that it isn't their fault, that none of it is their fault, that they have always done everything they could for her. "I care about you. I'm sorry it's come to this. I didn't want to see you hurt. I know I haven't been the most thoughtful daughter..."

"No, no," gulps Pyla; the tears are still not falling, but they show heavily in her breathing. "This is all wrong - I'm meant to be... meant to be strong for you, meant to be telling you it's okay, that we're..."

"That we're proud of you anyway," finishes her father, wrapping his arms protectively around Pyla. "That we love you. That we respect your choices, even if it hasn't always seemed that way. That you should never feel like you're... disappointing us... even if..."

His voice is kind of breaking up, weirdly, like she'd never expected to hear. Japheth has always been the solid, unmovable, stable one of the family.

Watching him gaze helplessly at the floor as he cries on Pyla's shoulder. That is not something she expected. That is not something she can just... handle.

"I'm going to die," she says, wonderingly, in the direction of her hands spread out in front of her on the table. "I'm going to die. This time next - year - next, I don't know, month at most, week maybe? I'll be dead."

Her parents are just standing there, Japheth struggling to get himself back under control, Pyla trapped by his embrace - not that he is strong enough to hold her, but in his moment of grief she does not want to pull away.

Solaria feels oddly light-headed. She isn't sure whether she is laughing or crying. She has looked at her hands until they seem alien; how do these pale, lightly calloused things belong to her?

The Peacekeeper peers around the door, and the sound makes her lift her head.

"Don't," she begins. "Don't worry about me. Don't grieve for me. I'm sorry for... for having wasted so much of your time, of your effort... but it's been - it's been good. I've been... I mean... it's okay... I'm not... you should get on with your lives, anyway." 

She doesn't know how to do it. She's spent so long pushing them away; she doesn't know how to make it up to them in these short minutes, now that it has come to this.

"Oh, Soli," weeps her mother. "Always so brave."

She can see the Peacekeeper slipping into the room behind them, preparing to clear his throat; to tell them that the visit is over.

"It's not bravery," replies Solaria, standing up and putting a hand on her mother's shoulder. "It's just... looking for the next handhold."

"Come on," says the Peacekeeper. "It's time to go."

And he gently guides them out of the room, leaving Solaria standing there.

She stares at the back of the door blankly for hours, living her short life again and again in her head; it has been good, she tries to convince herself. It has been good, and there's no use being upset about it being over soon.

\----

It must almost be time for the train when he crashes through the door, not waiting for the Peacekeeper to introduce him.

"Solaria!" he cries. "What do y' think you're doing?"

Staring blankly at the door, she doesn't say. Cultivating acceptance, she also doesn't say. Her apprentice master isn't big on acceptance - or, she is fairly sure, meant to be in the city this week...

"Thinking," she replies.

It's her standard excuse, and they both know it.

"Whatcha doing that for?" he asks, stridently. "Less it's thinking about how you're going to win. Which the look on your face doesn't 'xactly match up to, missy."

"I'm sorry," she says, turning on the sarcasm. "If you've got any tips for defeating people twice my size who've trained all their lives in personal combat, I'm all ears."

"Don't defeat them in personal combat," he replies, perfectly serious. "Come on, missy, I know there's more between them ears than that. Don't give me any of that defeatist rubbish. You're the best apprentice I've ever had, and I'm not losing you to some bullshit Game to titillate the painted fairies in the Capitol."

"You've lost me either way," retorts Solaria, although she's bantering on reflex; she has only just thought of what happens if she does win. It's not, at the present moment, sounding all that more promising than the alternative. "They'll have me up in a Victor's Mansion and tie me to the phone line for regular appearances. Maybe I'll get to play at climbing things - maybe it will be my talent - but I figure they'll decide it's too dangerous to do any real work. They don't like losing their Victors, Henry."

"Well," he says, "that's as maybe, but..." He looks away, as if he doesn't want her reading his face.

"Aww," she coos, although inwardly she is genuinely touched, just a bit. "Am I really more than just another pair of hands to you, Henry dear?"

"Yes," he admits, still not meeting her eyes. "You daft kid, you don't know the effect you have on people, do you?" he asks, finally looking up, now that he's plastered over the raw grief with a fond smile that she's never seen before either. "It'll do you well in the Games, if you can get your hopeless Capitol sycophant of a mentor to pay attention."

"Yeah, well," replies Solaria, fending him off for a moment with meaningless words while she tries to get her mind to catch up to the conversation. Does he know who her mentor will be? Suddenly she wishes she'd paid more attention to previous Games. "It's all about luck, pretty much, and I've already proved my luck's lousy by getting selected in the first place; so you'll forgive me if I don't get properly upset about the prospect of my messy death, or leaving with some serious blood on my hands to drink myself to some kind of living death afterward."

It looks like Henry is about to start on a retort to that lecture, but before he can, the Peacekeeper opens the door and strides in.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you're going to have to leave," says the Peacekeeper, carefully polite, but obviously expecting to be obeyed. "The train will be here shortly."

"Yeah, yeah, I'd better not disturb the chickens," replies Henry, wearily. He drags a hand through his thinning hair, and his shoulders fall as he lets himself be meekly led out of the room.

\----

"So, how are you feeling?"

The question is ludicrous. Solaria reminds herself that laughing at people is rude, and that there was no need to make people suffer her rudeness, just because she'd given up on any future benefit accruing from being nice to people.

But she can't summon up a useful reply, so she just stares at the lady incredulously.

"Let me start that again," she says, with a small, self-deprecating laugh. "I'm Lumina, and I'll be your mentor for these Games. So we can either get on with planning how you are going to try to not die, or we can sit down and eat nice things and talk of trivialities until the inevitable happens. It's really your call."

And she flashes a disarmingly brilliant smile, although the makeup rather detracts from the effect for Solaria, rather than increasing it, as it undoubtedly does with her usual audience.

"I want to live," replies Solaria, bluntly. The boy who was chosen with her looks around in consternation; after all, she's just essentially said, "I want you to die."

But she's not taking any of that, and Lumina nods. Something deeper lights up in her eyes, something almost feral, and she looks Solaria up and down with a disarmingly frank appraisal.

"Where's my mentor?" pipes up the boy. Cole. His name is Cole. His parents obviously had either a paucity or an overabundance of imagination, much as Solaria's did.

"He'll have his nose in the liquor cabinet," replies Lumina, dismissively. "What, you want to live, too?"

But the boy just looks queasy and drops his gaze, staring glumly at the table in front of him.

"That's what I thought," says Lumina, gently. "Look, the buffet's covered in sweets. You can probably find something you like. Better enjoy yourself while you can, kid."

When he doesn't move, she gets up herself, and fills a plate with a few choice morsels while she continues to address Solaria.

"Surviving's not easy," she warns. "And especially not when you're only part-grown. I got out because I got lucky; someone kindly provided me with cliffs, and wires, and a rising water level, and no one else knew what to do with them. You can't rely on that."

She pushes the plate in front of Cole. "C'mon, these are good," she cajoles him. "I picked them specially for you. Everything I remember liking before I got used to Capitol snacks."

He reluctantly picks one up and begins to eat mechanically at first, but it's clear from his expression that the miniature tartlet that he has just bitten into is almost overwhelmingly delicious; the kind of food that demands all your attention, pushing out lesser concerns.

"Poisonin' my boy already?" slurs a voice from the inter-carriage door, which has just swung open to reveal Cole's mentor, Jeffrey. He's holding a bottle and moving with careful determination, like someone who is very used to being inebriated.

Lumina rolls her eyes. "Come on, Solaria," she says, "let's leave them to it."

Solaria glances back at Cole and his mentor. District partners could be the best allies, she'd thought. But this is looking pretty hopeless. She'll have to find her backup elsewhere.

She follows Lumina through the other inter-carriage door as the train starts up, and rushes to a window to smile and wave goodbye to her District, her parents out there somewhere - although she can't see them in the crowd of black-haired mourners that she assumes are Cole's friends and relations - and to the cameras.

"Good," says Lumina behind her. "I see you've learnt the first lesson already."

"You can thank apprentice-master Henry for that," Solaria replies. "Now, where do we begin?"

"We sit down," suggests Lumina, doing so on a bench in front of a table equipped with a very small and thin television screen. "You eat something, if you think you can face it; the savoury stuff is best, but it doesn't matter that much today - whatever you can manage." Solaria looks over at this car's buffet, but none of it is looking very appetising right now. "And we review the competition."

As Solaria settles down beside her, Lumina flicks on the television screen, and fiddles with the remote control for a few moments; then the picture settles on the Reaping Stage in District One.

\----

"I would apologise for your Parade stylist," Lumina tells her, "but we've decided a low profile is a good bet at this stage; so don't worry that much." 

"Keeping a low profile, yes," replies Solaria, cautiously, "but what about sponsors?"

"I've got one of my own dressmakers putting together something for your interview," Lumina smiles. "I don't think you will have to worry about sponsors."

She tries to keep quiet during the attack of the stylists. Just like the children who stayed at school, it seems like their worlds have nothing in common. The comparison helps her not to blame them; not to become bitter about the whole situation. 

She can't stop rubbing her fingers together, afterwards.

"I spent a long time on those calluses," she complains to Lumina. "I'd hoped to take them into the Arena with me. Not to have it all filed down to nice, soft, blistering skin again. And those head-dresses. Have you seen the head-dresses?"

"I have seen the head-dresses," confirms Lumina, with some amusement at Solaria's indignation.

"I am going to look the stupidest and the ugliest I have ever looked," she continues. "And they sparkle. I mean, the bodysuit thing does at least show off my arms. That's something, I guess. But that stupid headdress totally covers my hair - and it's so obvious that I don't have any boobs - and silver makes me look so pale I might as well be dead already..."

"Then it'll be an even better surprise when they see you at the interview, won't it?"

The parade is a disaster. It's not just the costumes. It's the way she can't stop looking at everything at once - the way that the colours of the Capitol onlookers keep drawing her eye, so she almost forgets to wave and smile, and when she does it looks nervous and fake.

As she gets down off her chariot, she spots her designer. He makes his way over to dismantle her costume, and she yells at him. "This is all your fault!" she rages. It's unfair and she knows it. It's not exactly keeping a low profile, either.

But everyone is busy staring at the star of the show - at Katniss Everdeen, some coal miner's daughter out of Twelve, whose designer has put her in something approximately ten thousand times less stupid-looking - with the extra exciting feature of catching fire while the chariot from Twelve was in full view of the suddenly-adoring public.

She tries to tell herself that this was the point; that no-one was meant to look twice at the pale ghost in the reflective get-up; that there is no threat from the other girl, given the way Cato was glaring, an unmistakable challenge, right at Katniss and the gormless boy-child she has been lumbered with as a district partner.

None of it helps the jealousy, though. So she glares at her pink-haired designer while he tries to explain what he was thinking when he made it, and that it even got a mention in the commentary, and will she please let him take it off her before it gets damaged.

"Why? I'm never going to wear it again," she asserts, more aggressively than she needed to, spoiling for a fight already.

"I've already got a buyer," he explains.

She considers, for a moment, deliberately tearing the fabric, ruining it for whoever is sick enough to purchase this hideous garment with all its macabre associations; but she figures that will just make it more valuable.

As Katniss' mentor ushers her away, Solaria meekly submits to her designer's ministrations and takes off her ridiculous head-dress, but she can't resist a parting shot.

"At least you're not making my interview outfit," she declares.

\----

"Show no reaction. Remember, at this stage you're a nobody. Don't look like a complete target, but given the competition, you've got more danger of standing out as a threat."

So her face is carefully blank as she watches the trainer instruct the others, her attention seemingly focussed forwards, although her eyes dart left and right, taking in the others' reactions. 

She can't quite keep her talents under wraps. The computerised training station is too much of a draw, and it displays her intelligence on the big screen for all to see. But no-one is paying any attention to her. The Katniss and Cato show going on around them is providing the best smokescreen that Solaria and Lumina could have asked for.

Cole seems to be coming out of his shell. It's something about the weapons that does it. He throws himself into physical training like he's finally realised he might be good at something - and to her surprise, he is, rather.

"I shouldn't be surprised," she tells Lumina, "he's a chute monkey, after all; they do a lot of scrambling and quite a bit of carrying, of course that would carry over."

"Maybe," says Lumina, "if you can persuade him not to stand and fight at the start, he could be useful. But he looks like an extra mouth to feed, and someone you don't want to sleep too near at night - it's not like Five is known much for its district solidarity, not between someone like you and someone like him."

"You just don't like him because you hate Jeffrey," observes Solaria, "and you want everything Jeffrey does to fail."

"Don't you?" asks Lumina with a fey smile.

"Anyway," Solaria concedes. "Training score. What should I be aiming at? Nothing I do is very... showy."

"Just don't score less than Rue."

There are a few things that Solaria practices in earnest. She tries to get her running speed up. She absorbs everything she can about edible plants. She tries her hand at throwing spears, but she's terrible, so she spends some time learning how to set snares instead.

And she concocts an elaborate show for the private training session, because she has some pride left, because there are a lot of good contenders, and because she doesn't want to score less than Rue.

When she is called, she makes her way straight to the trap-setting section. Carefully, but quickly, she sets a series of snares around the training room; mostly animal-catching snares, but a few tripwires and human-trapping varieties as well, just for good measure.

She knows if she takes too long on this stage she'll lose their attention. 

As the finale for setup, she sticks a spear into a target as a kind of fake tree-branch and swiftly ties a couple of bird-snares on it; a little bit more movement to get people looking.

Then she begins to run circuits around the room, gradually getting faster and faster, dodging all of her self-made hazards with ease. Faster and faster...

...until she ducks under the spear, her right foot goes wide, and suddenly she's collapsed in an ungainly heap on the ground with a rabbit-snare around her ankle.

"Fuck," she says, with feeling. There is some ironic applause.

She tries to reach for one of the knives to cut herself loose, but they are all just out of reach, and she daren't risk over-reaching and pulling the cord in tight enough to damage her ankle. So she gives up and sits there until a Peacekeeper shows up to cut her loose.

\----

The interview dress is not a disappointment.

The interview is.

She watches herself on the screen and cringes every time a word is spoken. "Did I say that? How could I say that?" she whines, gesturing despairingly at the girl in the recording.

"It's okay, Sol, calm down," Lumina attempts. "It doesn't matter what you said. You could have said 'purple monkey dishwasher'. What you said was fine."

"But it doesn't mean anything!" cries Solaria. "And it sounds like I've rehearsed it, and then somehow botched my lines, so that it sounds pretentious and doesn't make sense at the same time!"

"No one was listening to a word you said. No one who was going to sponsor you, anyway..."

"Not after that training score, no," interrupts Solaria, mournfully, "because no-one is going to sponsor me."

"...because your potential sponsors were too busy looking. If you're going to be defeatist," warns Lumina, "I'm quite happy to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy. We agreed this at the start, remember?"

"Yeah," she says, sullenly.

"Don't 'yeah' me, young lady," Lumina reprimands her. "I don't let myself have any hope for a Tribute very often. Especially one who can't even throw a knife straight. If you're ready to give up because you hate yourself in a recording - and, darling, everyone hates themselves in a recording, it's human nature - then I might as well start commiserating now. The only thing that is going to keep you alive out there is..."

"Is refusing to admit any possibility of failure," parrots Solaria. "I know, I know. It's just... I don't know... that was meant to be the bit where I impressed people, right? The bit I was allowed to get right? And I blew it."

"Nonsense," insists Lumina. "You looked amazing. Ridiculously amazing. Stunning. If I weren't twice your age I'd want you, and I know plenty of people who have no such qualms."

"And they know they can't have me unless they get me out alive."

"Exactly." Lumina looks very pleased with herself. "I knew you were smart enough to get it."

"That's how you're going to get me sponsors?"

"It worked for me."

Solaria looks at Lumina, critically, for a moment. Not that she doubts that her mentor looks very attractive indeed, to a certain type of Capitol resident with deep pockets and Capitol tastes. What she's weighing is...

"You're wondering, aren't you," says Lumina, "if you want to become me?"

"Yeah," Solaria admits.

"Food's good," Lumina smiles. "Keeps my mother happy, too. Though she still tells me I don't get home often enough."

"Has anyone told you lately," replies Solaria, "how much of a manipulative bastard you are?"

"Frequently," Lumina answers. "Doesn't stop them doing what I want them to, though."

"I still want to live."

"Of course you do. Now, this is your last chance to pick out some allies..."

\----

Lumina has her personal stylist do Solaria's hair before she lets her on the hovercraft.

"Don't let that pink bastard re-do it," she warns her, as she sees her off.

As last words, they're not great. Solaria thinks that's probably intentional. Anything that might make her fight harder, however tiny. Lumina does not do things by halves.

She looks around at the tributes stacked together in the hovercraft, watches their reactions to the tracker implant. Katniss' mentor hasn't even told her about it; the girl sets off the movement sensors trying to get a closer look at someone else's being done, asks what it is, like she can't help making a scene. Some of the little kids wince. 

Not much is new there, then.

As agreed, she just snatches the jacket off the assigned designer without fanfare. He looks like he wants to put comforting hands on her shoulders, maybe say some kind of platitude, but the full force of her glare sends him retreating off to the other corner of the tiny room.

The wind makes short work of her hairdo as soon as the tube goes down, anyway.

Just standing here is surprisingly difficult. She blinks the sun out of her eyes, begins to scan the Cornucopia for outlying supplies that she might be able to make off with. Sees if anyone is sizing her up for a quick kill. 

Tries to keep herself busy, so that she won't think about it. Won't think of stepping off the plate early. Won't think of ending it all here, quick and easy; blown up by landmines, probably far less painful than the other ends that could be in store for her.

And far less painful for her parents, too. They won't have to endure days of it, glued to their television screens, putting up with the inane Capitol banter and ghoulish Capitol indifference in order to catch a glimpse of her, here and there.

And Lumina... she must be used to disappointment by now. She won't have to waste her time trying to get perverts to bid on the possibility of getting to use Solaria afterwards. And Solaria won't have to... provide a return on their investment...

That is almost enough to send her foot forwards. But there are only three more seconds, and the part of her that wants to live holds her back for just long enough.

She starts running for the closest pack, but she can see two other tributes on course for it; she changes direction, picks a secondary target, but another boy is also headed that way and Clove is almost at the first set of knives. 

Once sharp objects start flying through the air, people are going to start dying at random. It would be nice to have something to start with, but she's got the clothes on her back and her jacket's got a couple of drawstrings; she can go with that.

So she vectors away, around the back of the Cornucopia so that the obvious lines of attack are cut off, but otherwise straight into the treeline.

In the cover of the trees, she picks up the pace.

And runs straight into Katniss Everdeen.

\----

They look at each other for a long, desperate moment.

I'm still worried that you don't have allies, echoes Lumina's voice in her head. I know the pickings are pretty slim this year, but you should at least talk to some of them?

They'll expect too much, she tried to explain. They'll take my food. They'll get in the way. They'll give away my location.

Katniss has a backpack. Solaria has nothing. If anyone's taking anything, it'll be her. They could run together. Katniss is the perfect ally; she has a massive target painted on her forehead, so when they do get found, Solaria can get away in the confusion.

Solaria knows that Katniss likes Rue, and Rue's primary quality is that she is harmless; so she tries to look as harmless, as scared, as in need of protection as she can muster.

At least this will tell her something. If Katniss shoves her over, tries to kill her, she'll know that her compassion is only an act.

Instead - after getting to her feet, catching her breath, and making sure Solaria isn't immediately attempting to kill her, nor is obviously equipped for killing her in the back from a distance - Katniss starts running again.

Solaria comes to a decision - and follows her.

They pound through the forest, Katniss giving no sign of having spotted her tail, of anything but concentration on getting away from the main pack, as far as possible, as soon as she can. 

Solaria begins to fall behind; the other girl is much better at running than her, much better in the forest, much better on the ground.

Then something spooks Katniss. 

The other girl puts on a burst of speed - and disappears from view.

Last chance. Solaria looks upwards. These trees were made for climbing. The spacing of the branches isn't regular, but it's rarely too far apart. She drags herself desperately up the branches, until she catches a glimpse of the orange backpack - falling, turning over and over, on the back of a girl rolling out of control down a hill.

Someone must be throwing knives, or shooting arrows; the girl that Solaria has just been chasing would surely never have lost her footing.

Shuffling out along a branch, Solaria takes a deep breath and leans outwards. She knows that the handful of twigs and leaves from the other tree won't take her full weight, but she uses what strength it has to slow her fall into the other tree's branches.

Climbing a bit higher, she still can't see anyone, and the layers of leafy branches look like they're starting to be enough to hide her from casual inspection.

Ripping the longest drawstring out of her jacket, she sets up a bird noose on the end of the branch, as best she can with no equipment. Then she settles in, pulling a few branches together and weaving them through each other in a makeshift platform.

She's just stuck up a pylon, she tells herself, and for now she needs most to remain calm - and let the situation unfold a little further.

\----

Lumina was right on at least one note - Cole's face is in the very first batch of dead Tributes, projected across the sky for all to see.

Mostly, she's worried that it will teach people to look up.

She tries to weave together something that will gather water, but without so much as a small knife, it just isn't happening. She starts licking dew off the leaves, but after going several trees away she is hit with the sudden terror that she might lose the tree where she set her one and only snare - not that it's done her any good so far, but it would do her no good to lose it, either.

Anyway, she needs to not move too much - now is the time to conserve energy.

Throughout her first day up in the trees, her motivation holds. She sits mostly at her platform, staring into the endless canopy, vaguely tracking the flight of birds to see if she can locate any nests.

The first night after the Cornucopia, there is only one more death. 

Soon, the hunger is too much to ignore. Nothing has landed in her snare, and she's not sure she's getting enough water from the dew either. With her bare hands, she strips some of the bark off the tree, finding several small wriggling grubs.

She carefully squashes them against the bark underside, to prevent them from making a home in her mouth or intestines, and then eats the resulting paste; as long as they're thoroughly dead, she remembers, and haven't been obviously living on decayed meat, things that are like grubs or maggots are generally safe to eat.

It's surprising, how inoffensive their taste is. She was expecting to have to choke them down, but mostly they taste of nothing, maybe very slightly of leaf mold.

Then she strips the inner bark off with her teeth, in the absence of a knife.

Moving too early, and moving too late; she knows that either will kill her. She hasn't seen another person yet, since losing track of Katniss, but the lack of kills means the Career Pack are still out there, and getting frustrated.

So she resolves to wait, for now.

\----

On the fifth day, there are finally cannons. 

She waits impatiently until the evening - and, unexpectedly, Glimmer and the girl from Four light up the sky. Infighting in the Career Pack, already? She guesses it makes sense; if they can't find anyone else to fight, they turn on each other.

That might mean it's just that little bit safer to explore.

Safer than dying of thirst up a tree, in any case. Grubs, bark and leaf-juice just aren't doing it for her any more. She unties her useless bird-snare and stuffs it in a pocket.

She doesn't dare try the ground yet, but she makes some exhausting progress through the trees; looking for other places where the birds have been seen visiting regularly. It is not long before she is rewarded. 

Raw eggs, she knows, can sometimes be harmful - but probably not from wild birds, as these seem to be. She's too hungry to care, in any case. She bites the top off the egg cupped in both hands, defending against losing any of the precious sustenance.

After she's eaten the whole nest, she tries to set up her bird snare. Her clumsy fingers won't co-operate; she feels kind of sick from all that raw egg, and she can't work out how to set it up in the nest, rather than around a branch, anyway.

In the end, she uses it to tie her wrist to a branch; she doesn't want to waste the energy going back to her platform, but she also doesn't want to fall out of the tree if she does manage to lose consciousness.

On the sixth day, she sets out determinedly in search of actual water. She doesn't find water, but she does discover herself in the vicinity of the Cornucopia clearing again.

Her first instinct is to run away. There are clearly signs of habitation, presumably by the Careers, as no one else would dare to take up such an exposed position. In fact, she can see the guard, now that she's given into her curiosity and is looking a little closer. Clove is sitting on a folding chair under a sunshade and scowling at the treeline.

But Clove is not looking up - only out - and there's a massive pile of boxes which neatly shades the guard shelter from one particular line of approach.

It has to be a trap.

She circles around carefully, trying to time her noise with the standard rustling and birdsong of the forest. Takes up a spot watching the obvious route into the camp, if you don't want to get caught by the guard.

Waits for someone else to take the bait.

As the sun goes down, the remaining Careers return from their unsuccessful hunt. Solaria blinks, and looks again. Cato, of course; Marvel; but there's also the little runt of a kid from Three, whom she'd not expected to survive the bloodbath.

They send the Three boy off to the big pile of supplies to scavenge for dinner. It looks like they're using him as some kind of personal slave, which would make some degree of sense if it weren’t for Glimmer's death. Surely they'd have killed the runt first, if they just needed to let off some steam?

As she watches, though, she begins to have an idea. It's a hazy idea, because the dehydration is beginning to make it seriously difficult to think. But he's moving very carefully around those supplies, and she's already noted that it must be some kind of trap.

She stares at the uneven ground, and tries to remember back to those first frantic moments at the Cornucopia. There's some piece of the puzzle that she's missing, but the fading light isn't helping her.

Securing herself to a tree near enough to observe, she lets herself drift into an uneasy rest.

\----

They leave Cato behind on the seventh day.

Maybe he's not as stupid as she'd assumed, because he's frustratingly competent at guarding this pile of precious goods. Not competent enough to spot her sitting up in a tree right on the edge of the treeline, staring down at him and his stuff, but pretty good. He keeps getting up for random patrols, anyway, which is enough to keep her up in that tree.

She finds some more grubs and it's worrying how good they taste now. The dampness on her tongue is especially refreshing. Chewing the inner bark is surprisingly hard work.

The patrol walks give her more information. He's definitely taking a very well-defined path; like the path you take through a big transformer, where you know there are some places where the electricity can jump across, or where the hatches can explode with no warning...

...ugh, it would have been trivial if she weren't running so low on energy. That's what they've got the little boy from Three with them for; they've rewired the landmines, and reburied them in those really obvious mounds of dirt.

For the rest of the day, she wrestles with the right time to make her move. Sometimes she even gets as far as the lower branches, trying not to make any noise - he does look up once when she's changing position, and although he doesn't manage to spot her when he lumbers over to check, it shows he's listening. 

But she can't quite catch a break, and then Clove is back and she's angry.

She considers trying to use the shouting as cover, but she's seen Clove move. Clove can probably get a knife in her back from forty yards. And Cato can outrun her, and in the mood he's in, she doesn't think anything would stop him chasing her.

It's not clear if she sleeps that night, because the hallucinations are getting that bad. She is in a forest of pylons, which is somehow infested with snakes: hissing electrical snakes that are invisible at rest, and leap out to bite. 

She is sitting on the floor of the training room as they eat and drink above her, and no one comes to let her out of her own trap, and she slowly starves to death below them on the ground.

The Careers set off at sunrise, leaving the boy from Three in charge of the guard post.

Solaria forces herself to observe him for long enough to be fairly sure he isn't going to move from his chair. When he takes a pee break in the woods and returns to his post, she decides that's enough watching. Moving is surprisingly difficult. She practically falls out of the tree, but there's no sign of him even noticing the noise.

Readying herself to use the last of her energy, she carefully treads only on places she saw Peeta and Three treading - just in case they are smarter than she has given them credit for, and some of those molehills are only molehills, and some of the sod has been carefully replaced. It would be much easier to just avoid the molehills, but she hadn't come all this way just to be stupid at the last hurdle.

She has spent precious time thinking about this, fantasising over her expedition, and now she is out in the open she sticks to the plan. Opening a few containers, picking up just a little from each; making a bag out of a nondescript waterproof blanket from a pile of nondescript waterproof blankets, not stealing one of the bags wholesale.

The last thing she wants, after all this effort, is for them to tighten their guard. She can only carry a little out of here, along the tortuous path that her overcaution guides her through.

As she jogs out of the clearing, she hears movement behind her; perhaps the boy from Three has finally noticed something, and is coming back round to check. Her instincts kick in. She's at the base of a pylon surrounded by wilderness, and a bear has just taken an interest in her location. But she mustn't leave the toolkit behind - Henry has told her many times that the toolkit is worth more than her, and she should remember that.

Must be a special job. The toolkit is heavier and more awkward than usual. Also she's been out too long; her head feels sun-touched and she's skipped lunch and breakfast.

That's not going to stop her making the climb, though. If she's going to die through foolhardy adventure, she'll do it on her own terms rather than by relying on the mercy of a wild creature. No time to unlock the entrance ladder; she jumps up and pulls hard on the second handhold, kicking up her foot to reach the first, and then she is away.

Some way up the pylon, she stops. This pylon is weirdly festooned with chicken wire and netting, but she can still just about see down through them, to the boy from Three looking left and right on the ground, not sure where she has gone.

Wasn't it a bear? Never mind. First things first - she has lunch in her toolkit. Everything will be better once she's eaten something. She perches awkwardly on a handhold, and rummages around for a nice, juicy apple.

Then the world explodes.

\----

Solaria clings to the tree until the world stops moving.

Protocol for explosions. Item one. Make sure nothing in your immediate vicinity is about to be triggered by the explosion to perform its own explosion. She doesn't think she can take anything for granted any more, but the tree she is hugging fiercely looks reasonably non-explosive.

Item two. Make sure nothing in your immediate vicinity is on fire. She can definitely smell smoke, but neither herself nor the tree appear to be generating any of it.

Item three. Make sure you're not breathing anything terrible or about to run out of air. The smoke is kind of rising and some of that is plastic vapours, so not the most healthy thing to be taking into her lungs ever, but she's in an open space - it'll probably disperse soon enough. She could do better on this score by getting down to ground level, but there are bears down there. Or knife-throwers. Or something. Not important now. Too dangerous to descend to ground level. Move on.

Item four. Work out what has exploded, so that you can be more certain of the above three points. That one's fairly easy, now she thinks about it. The mines have exploded. She replays her memory of the last few moments, and decides there were a couple of pre-explosions, a main explosion, and then a couple of aftershocks. So there are two distinct types of explosion. Working hypothesis? Something in the pile turned out to be explosive on shock induction, such as being caught in a couple of landmine explosions.

Item five. Check for other sources of immediate danger. Her hearing is a little impaired, but there appears to be some very loud angry shouting from the direction of the smoke, probably Cato. The smoke is really cutting down visibility from her tree, especially as she is not convinced she can persuade her arms to unwrap from the tree trunk in the near future. Also her mouth is incredibly dry and it feels like she's managed to get some serious sunstroke, despite not being out in the sun. Or it might just be that she hasn't eaten properly for days. That might be it.

Item six. Make sure you have secured your toolkit. Solaria experiences a moment of sheer panic about the location of her toolkit before realising that the top of the blanket is still clamped firmly in her hands on the other side of the tree trunk.

Item seven. Find a position where you can sit comfortably and await rescue indefinitely. Two competing priorities here - she doesn't want to make a noise, but she does want to eat her rescued food as soon as possible. Then she laughs at herself. She doesn't need to worry about making noise - everyone has been deafened by the explosion and those who can still hear a bit will only be able to hear...

...the gristly twisting, snapping noise as Cato casually wrings the neck of some other unlucky Tribute. The sound of their cannon. Cato's cry of triumphant rage.

Food. That's the thing she is doing - eating some of her food. This is no place for Item eight - render aid to others if it is possible without compromising your own safety. Rendering aid to others, here, is intrinsically compromising her own safety.

She sits on the branch and she gets out an apple and it is the most glorious apple she has ever tasted. She licks the juice off her lips and captures each stream of it that tries to sneak down the skin of the apple with her parched tongue. For a few moments, nothing else matters. The apple is her whole world.

Eating and sleeping - the fundamental building blocks of a life. She didn’t realise how much she has missed them until this moment.

She resolves to do nothing else until the bag runs out of food.

\----

She sleeps through the night. 

She sleeps through the sunrise.

And when she wakes up she has lost track of the Careers. 

She stashes her bag against the tree, tied around with a small length of rope, and moves around a little to get a better angle on the clearing, on the surrounding woodlands, on that thin gap in the treeline - but no one seems to be in the vicinity.

She takes stock of the items she retrieved. If she'd been thinking straight, she'd have picked a different assortment. More snare-setting equipment. A knife - there must have been plenty of knives. Something to start fires with, because raw eggs are bad enough, but raw meat is actively likely to kill her.

In the end, it's more because she wants to think that there's no choice, than because there actually is no choice.

She carefully descends the tree, and sneaks across into the wreckage of the supply dump.

If she's going to die, she wants her action to be the cause of it, not her inaction. Anyone can starve up a tree. No wonder that Lumina doesn't seem to have found her any sponsors, if she's not going to do anything interesting for them.

It is as she begins to sift through the wreckage that the absurdity of the situation hits her.

Should she be trying to find a comb? To wash her hair? Isn't her beauty meant to be the selling point, the one talent they will notice, and reach out their parachutes to save her?

She hears herself laugh out loud, and her first thought is to stifle it - one of the other Tributes might be in the vicinity still, might hear her.

But she closes her fingers around a knife handle in the ashes, and laughs again. Let them come. What is she afraid of, dying? She already died, the day that her name was read out from a little slip of paper, in front of her District. 

Every time she thinks she has a plan that works, it explodes in her face - literally, this time - so why should she think any of her actions are going to have a logical outcome?

Meanwhile - eating and sleeping, these are the things that she can enjoy, no matter what the situation.

She picks up a cooking pot to go with her knife, and she hears the unmistakable sound of heavy running through long grass.

No need to make it easy for them. Time to go.

\----

Two cannons. Two faces in the night.

Solaria is impressed that the little girl from Eleven got so far. And even more impressed that she seems to have taken her attacker, Marvel, with her. She guesses the little girl was probably under the protection of Thresh, and has now been avenged by him.

She has set her traps by rote - some of that training in the week before the Games paying off - but the thirst is becoming all-consuming. Those few apples rescued before the explosion are probably all that is keeping her going. She knows she needs to find a real source of water, and soon.

"Attention Tributes, Attention."

The faintly mechanical voice sings out across the forest, and she can't be sure whether it is real or some kind of new hallucination.

"Regulations requiring a single victor have been... suspended."

It's got to be a hallucination, she thinks. That makes no sense even by the standards of the last couple of days. 

Truly unprecedented occurrences... they just don't happen in Panem.

"From now on, two victors may be crowned if both of them originate from the same district."

...what?

"This has been the only announcement."

...WHAT?

She knows what.

She knows that the Katniss and Peeta show is back in town.

"NO!" she cries out, her meagre attempts at stealth forgotten. She stalks up to where she knows the nearest camera is located, and she shakes out her hair until it falls from its moorings over her shoulders. 

She knows that her eyes are flashing with genuine anger.

It's now or never.

"I know that nothing is fair," she begins. "I know that this whole contest is meant to be a punishment. But can you really let them get away with that? Cato and Clove have each other, Katniss and Peeta have each other..."

She lowers her eyes in entirely fake sorrow and contrition.

"And so you relegate the ones that could have been YOUR victors, not their own. Katniss the ice maiden will never be yours. Peeta the humble son of the earth will never be yours. Cato and Clove will own their own triumph if they can make it."

She blinks tears into her eyes and looks up at the camera again.

"It's in your hands now. We all know the Gamemakers interfere with the Games at their whim, but how are your bets looking now, which you placed in good faith that the rules would be as they always are?" 

And then she plays the line that people have used against her so many times, when she chafed against the confines that held her in her place.

"If you let them get away with this, what might they think of next? Is nothing sacrosanct? Is nothing stable, nothing reliable, nothing unchangeable?"

As if on cue, a silver parachute descends through the canopy towards her.

She scrambles up the nearest tree and snatches it up as it falls. "Thank you!" she calls, before she even opens it. And looking at what is in her hands - it's a canteen full of water, and strapped to the side are some water purification tablets.

Somehow, she's done it. She's put words together into sentences and they have actually meant something to people, rather than just making everything worse. It feels just as unreal as everything else here - but the canteen of water is very real, and right here, and commands her full attention.

But if she wants it to happen again, she's got to finish right, too.

"We can do this," she promises them, between gulps of precious, precious water. "We can show them. Thank you, thank you so much..."

\----

The blanket is not enough to get her through the night.

She lies awake under the stars, trying to find a better position, trying to use the tree as a wind-break; but the freezing wind keeps finding its way into her makeshift shelter. And suddenly, as she looks up at the stars, the fear lances through her.

Trying to sleep is the worst thing she could be doing. It's a basic part of her harsh weather training - don't fall asleep when it's really cold. If you can fall asleep, you have probably stopped shivering, and if you stop shivering, that's when you die of exposure.

Blanket around her shoulders, she scrambles down out of the tree and heads out to check her traps. Not that she thinks anything will be in them yet, but to give her something specific and focussed to do, to keep her moving.

"Attention Tributes, attention."

For a moment she allows herself to hope. Maybe she sparked enough of a backlash against the rules change. Maybe they're going to revoke it. She's sure that then the others will turn on each other again - leaving the last dance for her.

"There will be a feast tomorrow at the Cornucopia."

...no, it's just that she's not the only Tribute with a little camera appeal. Clove and Cato are probably out of food, and District Two has strings it could pull. It would be an awesome coup for Two to get its two out of this together, after all.

"This will be no ordinary occasion."

She laughs, huddles down in her makeshift cloak. "Nothing here is ordinary," she says disparagingly, to the uncaring trees. Maybe to her caring audience, too, if she still has one.

"Each of you needs something... desperately."

Does she? Maybe, she supposes, if they're going to keep this weather up; she's got the one thing she really needed before the cold snap fell, but - of course - they've moved the goalposts once again.

"And we plan to be... generous hosts."

Did he just laugh? "Did you just laugh?" she asks the night. "Did you just laugh at me? No... no, you were laughing at your own cleverness, weren't you?" She makes a disgusted noise. "Well, bring it on. We'll give you something to laugh about."

...wait. At the Cornucopia?

The Cornucopia has walls. Walls and a table and shelter from the wind. And she's got to be there anyway, because even if she doesn't desperately need what they've provided now, she's willing to bet they'll make damn sure she does afterwards if she doesn't go and take it.

Maybe she can survive this night after all.

\----

There seems to be no feast when she gets to the Cornucopia in the dead of night, but there are walls, blessed walls. They cut the freezing wind right out of her life, and she can feel warmth seeping back into her bones.

She can't sleep, but the waiting is easier here. The Careers have picked the place bare, and everything that was here has gone up in smoke, but the walls themselves remain and protect her.

Listening to every dry twig and every calling bird, clutching her knife just in case she can do anything with it, she waits for her death or salvation to arrive.

And salvation comes first.

As the grey light of false dawn illuminates the clearing, and begins to give way to the first rays of true sunlight, a table unfolds from the ground bearing four bags.

She has spent the night considering her options. She could eliminate an opponent - maybe two - if she could be entirely sure they weren't ready to follow when she took their stuff. 

And it is very tempting to run off with Twelve's bag in any case. She has no doubt that they are to blame for the two-Tribute ruling, after that Parade and those interviews, and those training scores; something murky is stirring beneath the still waters of the Capitol there.

But common sense - and the will to survive - wins out over the desire for vengeance; they will likely all be killing each other shortly in any case, so she should simply take her stuff and get out as soon as possible.

So when the table begins to rise, she doesn't even wait for it to finish. With speed she didn't know that she still had in her, she bursts from her cover, snatches up her bag, and sprints into the forest.

She runs as though she is being chased, although it takes her a few moments to work out whether she is or not.

She is.

It's Cato.

And he's closing.

She runs as she has never run before in her life.

He is still faster than her.

She looks up into the trees. She could start climbing. But he can follow her on the ground.

He's gaining ground every moment.

She can spend her whole life off the ground if she has to.

Swinging up onto a lower branch, she begins to climb.

If Clove is with him, she'll undoubtedly be lining up a shot. 

But one of them has to be back with their bag.

Cato looks up, draws one of his own knives, and takes aim. Maybe she's been teaching him.

Then there is a cry that echoes through the trees.

"Cato!" screeches Clove. "Cato!"

With one final glare - if looks could kill, Solaria would be dead - Cato breaks off the pursuit to save his district partner.

Not daring to stop and catch her breath, Solaria flees through the branches. She leaps and climbs until she is so weary that when she looks across to another tree, she is certain she will fall to her death if she attempts the jump.

Then she collapses with her back against the trunk, and reflects on how much warmer she feels already.

And, of course, that's when it starts to rain.

\----

Clove is in the sky that night.

Solaria has set up a shelter with her blanket and her new warm things, and there is no shortage of water. She carefully purifies it before drinking, just in case. Being rehydrated is marvellous. Everything gleams in the rain, and she can enjoy just looking at things again.

She drinks, and eats the last few crackers, and listens to the sound of the rain.

Thresh is in the sky, the following night.

Now she can sleep, she worries that she is doing rather too much of it. The others have their vital supplies. Is it still possible for her just to wait for them to die? She needs some kind of offensive strategy, but she's got nothing.

If it weren’t raining, she tells herself, she'd go out and set some man-traps; at least that would look like she's trying. 

But the next day dawns bright and sunny, and she goes around and collects from her snares, which have finally brought her something; a couple of rabbits, and some kind of tiny deer. She can barely disentangle it from the snare through the unexpected tears.

Pathetic. She can't even kill an animal without feeling sorry for it. 

Maybe it will be different when they're trying to kill her back, though.

Drying her eyes angrily on her sleeve, she sets about making a fire and stripping the carcasses. It feels wrong to be on the ground. She's certain that someone will come and kill her any moment. But she's no longer convinced that life is worth living without proper sustenance.

Everything is damp. 

She does all the right things. Makes a pile of not-that-damp shavings. Has various sizes of wood ready to go. Drags her knife along a flint, smashes two together, then sits down and whittles an actual fire-bow using a small length of her rope.

Nothing is working.

She screeches in frustration, and the heavens answer her once again. Scrambling up the easily-climbable tree she has carefully stationed herself next to, she snatches the falling package from the air. 

Matches. Firelighter blocks. There is a fire.

The knife and some wood provide her with a spit.

She sits by the fire and combs her hair out with her fingers, turning the trio of bodies occasionally. Rewarding her sponsors with a good show, she hopes, while rewarding herself with a good meal.

Making the fire must have taken longer than she thought; it seems to be growing dark again already...

\----

"Of course they can climb trees," she says, mostly to herself.

Not only are they climbing trees, but they appear to be climbing several trees at once.

"Couldn't get anyone to come kill me, so you've come to do it yourselves?" she yells into the wind, although she's still not sure they can hear her over the baying of the hounds.

Shortly thereafter, however, she answers her own question. There's just one tree, in reach of this one, which does not have a climbing, muscular abomination steadily making its way up the trunk. 

While she's in no doubt that these things will kill her if they get close enough, that's not what they're here for. 

They're herding her.

"Cooking fire wasn't obvious enough for you, huh?" she asks, as she shimmies out along a branch towards her target. "Bored of us already?"

She grabs the edge of the other tree's branch and leaps, pulling herself up and dampening her velocity on the handfuls of twigs and leaves she is left holding.

At the fourth tree, she finds herself at the edge of the Cornucopia clearing. Cato has just dragged himself onto the roof, and Katniss has just broken cover out of the treeline, followed closely by Peeta.

"Or do you just want the happy ending to your little love story?" she asks, disgusted.

As if in response, two hounds start climbing the tree she is perched in.

"Well, you're not getting it," she declares, and begins to carefully knot her rope to a couple of snares, and then up to the highest tree-branch she can reach overlooking the clearing - and to her own waist.

This is definitely something that is listed under things you do not do while climbing pylons, unless you have someone to belay you, and probably not even then if there is any other way to access something - and even then, you do not do anything like this. Lowering carefully is the order of the day - but 'lowering' isn't going to help here. She scrambles back into the previous tree, careful not to fall; muttering under her breath, "more haste, less speed."

She thinks she's high enough up. The awful whining coming from the two hounds trying to get purchase on the new tree is not doing wonders for her concentration. If she's right, then the knot she'd left much higher in the other tree should tighten and hold, and she shouldn't get too close to the ground at any point, and she should be near the end of the swing not far above the Cornucopia, and then she can stop holding on and cut herself loose at this weak point she has left.

Taking a deep breath, she gets up on both feet on the narrow branch, well behind her rope-point. Bends her legs. Closes her eyes... 

And jumps.

Flying through the air, completely unsupported for a moment. She feels like she should grow wings and soar away, off back to her pylon-top aerie where she can laugh at the battle below. But she knows that she has to concentrate, to pick the right moment exactly in order to land her flight in the one safe place.

She could try changing position, to influence her flight, but she has no idea how she might do so. All there is to do is to hope she lined it up correctly.

On top of the Cornucopia, the other three Tributes are wrapped up in their own personal drama - Katniss has an arrow drawn on Cato, who is holding a knife to Peeta's throat.

And then Solaria swings wildly out of the trees and collides with the largest target.

The tug of the rope reminds her to cut it, before it can drag her back off the questionable safety of the Cornucopia rooftop. She hears an arrow whistling over her head; screams of rage and terror; teeth and claws tearing into soft flesh.

Low to the ground, she charges forwards before Katniss can aim again. The only hope she has is to get inside her range; she realises that she has not thought this part through, although what time has she had to think it through?

She has to twist out of the way of a quickly reloaded arrow as both of them slam down into the unforgiving metal surface, leaving them each on their sides, facing each other, Katniss' bow discarded and her hands desperately trying to control the knife.

"You still want to live?" Solaria asks her.

Katniss just gives her a look, as if she should know the answer to that question, and concentrates on wrenching the knife out of Solaria's hand.

It hurts, and she isn't prepared for this, and she can't quite believe Katniss doesn't have her own backup weapon, doesn't have an actual plan. They're evenly matched, without the bow, in strength - hunting and climbing will both do that to a person. 

But Solaria is shaking with fatigue and hunger, and Katniss' grip is much firmer.

"Twelve needs it more than you do," Katniss explains, trying to get an edge on the other girl; trying to blunt Solaria's determination.

"What, my life?" asks Solaria. "I think I'm the only one who needs that." She twists and tries to sink the knife into Katniss' hand; the other girl tries to take advantage of the momentary change in focus to put more pressure on her wrist.

"Then let me have mine," Katniss hisses, "and... everyone's that relies on it... you selfish bitch..."

Of course Katniss has a backup weapon. She just didn't have time to draw it. It's in her boot. Freeing up the hand that is not desperately clutching the knife, Solaria lunges down and grabs it, then draws it in a long line up Katniss' leg; just as Katniss finally finds the right twist to open her other knife-hand.

Seeing her own knife under Katniss' control, Solaria rapidly disengages, scuttling backwards on all fours across the Cornucopia rooftop and then scrambling to her feet.

There have been no cannons, she thinks. 

That's another angle. 

She risks a moment peering down at the ground. The mutts have gathered around Cato and Peeta, four each, one limb each; and they are not all shapeless dark forms, Solaria dimly realises, but she pushes that realisation aside. She does not think that is going to help her right now.

"Aren't you going to save your lover down there?" Solaria asks Katniss.

"You could help me," counters Katniss. "Then two of us could get out of here, rather than just one. Surely you can understand that, at least."

Solaria considers her options. Katniss is probably faster and more deadly than her. Katniss is already bleeding from that leg wound, however superficial. Delaying tactics are the best tactics here.

She slumps, and looks defeated.

"They'll call you a villain," Katniss encourages her, using the moment to retrieve her bow and her final arrow. 

But the act must be working, or she would surely have shot her, right? 

"They'll never love you. But you could be a hero, instead."

"How are we doing this?" Solaria asks, in a small, lost kind of voice. "They'll be on us in seconds if we leave the platform."

"I've got one arrow," replies Katniss, with a note of uncertainty. "Can you throw knives?"

Solaria looks down at the mutts, uncertainly. Looks at the pain on the boys' faces. Listens to their cries.

"Not very well," she admits. "You'd be dead by now if I could."

"True," says Katniss, and with it there's just the ghost of a smile. "But what are we going to do?"

"I thought you had a plan," says Solaria, and pretends to wince at a particularly unpleasant scream. 

"There's one thing we could definitely do," says Katniss, reluctantly. "And we should do it quickly."

"Put them out of their misery?"

"Right. I can only get one of them," she waves her retrieved bow and arrow. "But if you're going to die anyway..."

"I could... cut something that bleeds fairly quickly. Then... dive in and do the same for them."

Katniss doesn't seem to be fading as fast as Solaria had hoped. There's plenty of reluctance she can play up about the idea of cutting herself, but some of that time has to be spent thinking where to do it which will look impressive but not leave her meaningfully incapacitated.

"I can't do it," Solaria says, as Katniss begins to get twitchy. "I'm sorry. We need another plan."

"I could just shoot you," says Katniss, "and sit here until they're dead."

"That's a plan," admits Solaria.

The arrow through her chest knocks her over backwards. The world is spinning around her and it hurts like nothing in her life before ever has. Katniss follows through and comes after her with the knife, because Katniss Everdeen is not stupid.

"I... want..." begins Solaria, through the haze. She can see her last opportunity. If she can roll Katniss off into the hounds, the Gamemasters might let her live.

She has no illusion that her life is in her own hands. The hounds can eat people quickly or slowly. It is only a matter of time before the arrow kills her.

Katniss lunges in to deliver the mercy stroke to her neck, and Solaria uses the last of her strength to heave her off the Cornucopia.

"I don't owe you anything," she rasps, as she watches Katniss slashing desperately at a small mutt, with dark glossy fur, huge brown eyes and a collar that reads 11 in woven straw. From each side, with perfect co-ordination, two pale mutts with jewelled collars stalk towards her.

Then Solaria coughs, and writhes, and gives into the darkness.


End file.
